Lechazo Asado

Lechazo asado is Castilla y León's milk-fed roast lamb, and it is plain in the way that makes a cook behave. A very young lamb, fed only on milk, goes into a cazuela de barro with water and salt. No garlic, no rosemary, no wine. The meat is pale and sweet, the bones small, the skin thin enough to crisp while the shoulder and rib meat turn soft.

The method that decides it is the turn. Roast it first flesh side up, with a finger of water under it, so the meat cooks gently and the juices do not burn. Then turn it skin side up and leave it long enough for the skin to tighten and brown. If the dish dries out, the pan juice turns bitter. If you drown it, you boiled the lamb. A finger of water. That is enough.

Far from Castilla y León, ask for milk-fed suckling lamb, bone-in and skin-on, the smallest your butcher can bring. If all you can buy is young spring lamb shoulder, use it, but know the truth: it will taste stronger and need longer, and it is cordero asado, not lechazo. No hace falta haber pisado España; you do need to buy the right animal as closely as your market allows. Pésalo, no lo adivines, salt by the weight, and siempre sale, si lo sigues. In my Margin beside this one I wrote only: water low, skin dry. It saves the roast.